8 hrs later

[Lohan2008]

Gahhhhh !

I spent 8 hours, yes 8 hrs retuning launcher so payload would match space ship already in orbit.

The launcher worked fine first time, so I figured I could "optimise" performance but 2nd launcher is sooooo UGLY.

(yes, I can park next to 1st ship).

How many hrs have you wasted 'fixing' an existing launcher ?

Edited September 27, 2013 by Lohan2008

[Lohan2008]

LOL< and I did not connect outside engine on the payload

/duh

[FlamedSteak]

I spent about 4 hours on a launcher before giving up on it.

I run stock and am far too lazy to do mathematics, so I'm always a bit in the dark about how much my payloads weighs.

[Lohan2008]

/weeps

[Blue]

If I can't get a design to work after four or five revisions, I usually stop and look at what other people have done on the internet.

It's not stealing other people's ideas if you build it yourself in the end...

[Kasuha]

It's not stealing other people's ideas if you build it yourself in the end...

I don't think Apple or Microsoft would agree.

It's more of that in KSP nobody is big enough to have a copyright on ship design.

[Lar-E]

Yeah, 8 hours sounds about right...

[Masked Turk]

Yeah... after a good few hours when you end up with a design using 20 orange tanks and 18 SRBs to launch a satellite... you realise you may have over-engineered something

[T-Pilot395]

Or when you build a massive launcher to launch your payload only to realise later someone else's launcher can do it with less parts.

I'm looking at you, Munshine launchers.

[lazarus1024]

Been there. Well, I can't say I've spent 8hrs on such a project, but I've been there.

My most demoralizing moments are when I manage to put together a massive mission, get it there and only THEN realize I forgot to put a part on, or something went wrong that was more code related.

One was a mission to Jool where I was going to land on Tylo, FINALLY. Spent about 20hrs between designing everything, launching assembly and getting to Tylo. I drop the lander and get about 800m above the surface and go to extend the landing legs.

The landing legs I FORGOT TO PUT ON THE *%( LANDER IN THE VAB!

I actually cried. I am not too ashamed to admit it. Yes, I tried to land anyway, no it didn't work out.

The next was a code bug on my first and only Moho mission. The docking port refused to release my lander. I did manage to get it working in the end, but it took tinkering in the save file (I changed the docking port types for both from a regular port to a junior port and it actually worked then). I hadn't spent as much time on the mission, but I was still probably 12hrs deep at that point and on the edge of giving up.

As for investing huge amounts of time in failed designs, I tend to give up after about 2 hours if I can't get something to work the way I wanted it to. Then I start over from scratch and probably change the design. Its part of why I never loft massive payloads. I tend to keep it below 30t for most payloads unless I need to get big fuel tanks in to orbit. Then I'll accept up to a single Rockomax orange as the payload. That is a little easier to do by struting it out and stuff.

[csanders]

I've been there too. "This is so close! Let's add an SRB. Kaboom. Ok, struts. Kaboom. Struts. Didn't kaboom, but still not quite there. Let's add a white tank to the Orange. Kaboom. Struts. Not there. SRB. Kaboom. Struts. Not there. Orange tank. Kaboom. struts. Kaboom. Struts. Kaboom. Extra SAS. Kaboom. Less SAS..."

You know the drill.

[Firedtm]

The Longest i spent on wasting time on a launcher was about 2 hours before i found what was wrong with it

now the longest time i wasted in KSP was building a Mun lander, trust me when i say NEVER over think how stuff works, that was about 3-4 hours

[Masked Turk]

Been there. Well, I can't say I've spent 8hrs on such a project, but I've been there.

My most demoralizing moments are when I manage to put together a massive mission, get it there and only THEN realize I forgot to put a part on, or something went wrong that was more code related.

One was a mission to Jool where I was going to land on Tylo, FINALLY. Spent about 20hrs between designing everything, launching assembly and getting to Tylo. I drop the lander and get about 800m above the surface and go to extend the landing legs.

I tend to do go through missions from start to end in my head nowadays, checking I have all the necessary bits and bobs, because this happens way to friggin much for me. A checkbox ingame... or a pen and paper on the desk... is massively useful.

[Dkmdlb]

now the longest time i wasted in KSP was building a Mun lander, trust me when i say NEVER over think how stuff works, that was about 3-4 hours

You should try designing a more complicated craft, like a manned Tylo lander which can reach Tylo from low Jool orbit, land on Tylo, take off again, and return to low Jool orbit, or an Eve-ascent ship. Over/under on that one: 8 hours

[AmpsterMan]

I've spent long times perfecting Launchers. My thing is that I play with some self imposed rules so to fulfill those rules, and get stuff where I want it to be, means that I hit a "soft" ceiling of sorts because of part count and wobbly rocket parts

[The Destroyer]

Is it wrong I usually get my launchers perfect?

Maybe I'm experienced....

Only problem was with 1 launcher when I didn't understand KER correctly, didn't have enough TWR.

[lazarus1024]

I tend to do go through missions from start to end in my head nowadays, checking I have all the necessary bits and bobs, because this happens way to friggin much for me. A checkbox ingame... or a pen and paper on the desk... is massively useful.

Funny you should say that, for my last Apollo mission I created a spreedsheet checklist that I printed off 20 copies of and I go through now, including an in-flight check list.

My first Apollo mission I forgot the ASAS on the lander, so it tipped over becauase of no active RCS control plus 1ms horizontal velocity plus 10 degree slope I was landing on (enter design check list). Then a comedy of errors in what I did (not design based) ensued (enter flight check list) all to be capped up with my one surviving kerbal headed back to Kerbin after the failed ground based mission only to re-enter the atmosphere and realize I ALSO forgot to put parachutes on it.

Apollo 2 is going stunningly well (and not just in comparison). Tonight I launch from the Mun to orbit.

My design check list is way too long to go in to, but my flight check is are for different stages.

Orbit

- Extend solar panels (you wouldn't believe the number of missions I've lost from time warping in orbit before extending panels)

Rendezvous

- Quick save

- Make sure you are using maneuver nodes, bone head

Flying to another planet

- Quick save

- Double check you extended solar panels

- Make sure you are using manuever nodes

- After burn, manually deactivate engines

Landing

- Quick save

- Don't time warp. You might not regret it this time, but you WILL regret it eventually

- Extend the landing legs. Do it early. I can see you thinking about waiting till the last moment. Don't, you'll forget.

- Quick save again, it costs nothing

- ENGAGE ASAS below 500m. Do it, do it NOW.

- You are landed? And you didn't tip over? Congratulations, you are almost as good as a trained chimp. Manually deactivate the engines.

- You brought a rover, nifty. PUT A KERBAL IN THE SEAT BEFORE YOU DECOUPLE THAT ROVER!!!

- You've quick saved...right?

Those are my actual flight checklists.

[AmpsterMan]

Is it wrong I usually get my launchers perfect?

Maybe I'm experienced....

Not at all, I find that after some time certain rules of thumb can be developed.

[Wayfare]

Or when you build a massive launcher to launch your payload only to realise later someone else's launcher can do it with less parts.

I'm looking at you, Munshine launchers.

Well thank you

Rest assured though - I'm sure I speak for the entire Wayfare team when I say that we learned by doing and stealing learning. We just figured that while fuel economy and payload fraction are all fine and dandy, it's part count that really bottlenecks KSP right now. We were actually kind of surprised we were able to pull off our launcher designs without getting all pancake-ugly. In fact we were surprised some of our designs actually left the pad. But it all worked out in the end. Serial staging folks - keep the faith!

[Whackjob]

Longest I've ever spent fine tuning something was about seventy hours.

The AEIA Mk4 I believe. Or Mk5. Can't remember.

[Robbii6]

My god... Its a masterpiece! How much DV does that have?

[Whackjob]

Didn't have enough to make orbit. And that's old... I've got ones that took way longer, now.

This took way longer. Only because it kept corrupting and undoing hours of work.

[Jas1126]

I swear that I'm not bragging here. I'm just confused. I rarely have my ships blow up, even when they're new designs. Maybe it's because I'm OCD about putting struts everywhere?

Take the launcher stage of a basic payload craft, for instance. I have 6 Orange tanks surrounding my middle orange tank. On those six outer tanks I place struts on the top, bottom and inner sections of the top and bottom; those inner struts connect to the center tank. Totaling 24 struts just to hold those tanks on. On the lander portion of this same ship I connect struts from the lander's tanks to the middle orange tank. I place struts on the lander tanks to one another and inner struts on those tanks connecting it to the center of the lander. Most likely overkill but maybe that's why I have so few failures? I'm genuinely confused by everyone having so many problems.

[Kerbonautical]

It's not exactly the same, but I spent a similar amount of time setting up a geostationary satellite relay for Remote Tech only to realize that I can't stand it! (No offense to the dev, amazing job and I really wanted to like it but it just induced a little too much realism and tipped the balance of fun for me personally)

I've also often spent considerable amounts of hours just building things that work fine, never to be used again and eventually deleted from my save file which I've also never had permanent file of. Generally most of my work gets scrapped, never to be seen again. I keep a few small gems and repeatedly start new files, I probably will until the official release happens. It's good training and I never have to worry if an update wipes my save either!

[Boomerang]

A lot of it's just a learning process. I can remember taking hours working on a launcher to lift 30-35t space station segments into LKO and having the prototypes all detonate anywhere between the launchpad and the upper atmosphere.

I've done that sort of work enough times by now that I'll spend a while designing a nice payload and only spend 10-15 minutes building that class of launcher.

Sometimes it's a matter of reviewing your payload to see how it can be minimized/stabilized, but once you figure out -your- best ways of building launchers, it gets a lot easier.